


an albatross around your neck

by strigiformes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Video Game Streaming, Anxiety, Awkward Flirting, Bucky Barnes Feels, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Deaf Clint Barton, Falling In Love, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Video & Computer Games, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, in this house we ignore Endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-02-27 17:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18743683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strigiformes/pseuds/strigiformes
Summary: Bucky could hear his therapist's voice in the back of his head, urging him forward and telling him that it would be good for him. Outside, with friends. They would go bowling or something easy. And yet all Bucky could think about was all the things that could go wrong, what if he couldn’t handle it and who would be there to calm him down. “Uh… yeah. There’s… a game on tonight I really wanted to catch.”“Alright. Well, offer stands if you change your mind. Or the game doesn’t go the way you want or something.”“Yeah. Thanks, Clint.”There was an awkward pause, both of them knowing exactly what was going on and neither of them wanting to say it. “It’ll probably be around seven or something, if you decide. Just ring, okay?”or: How James Buchanan Barnes Started Streaming Video Games and Met the Love of His Life





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the fact that I play way too many video games and only watch one streamer.

“You need to be getting out, meeting people again.”

Bucky sighed heavily as if this was the seven hundredth time his therapist had suggested such a thing rather than just the second. “Yeah, that crippling anxiety will let me just hop right on that, doc.”

“So you admit that your anxiety is a problem when it comes to approaching new people.” There was a scratching of pen against paper, “That’s a big step for you, James.”

He knocked his head against the back of his chair a few times, annoyed that he’d given him even a minute victory. They’d been dancing around it for months, toeing closer to a diagnosis that Bucky might have been able to voice before he backed off, too scared to actually say it. It hadn’t even been his idea to start this whole ordeal, he was fine with his life, sure it was a little plain but it was all his. It had been his friends, the few that he had, that made the suggestion to see someone. _It helped_. The words had always felt hollow, like they were trying to spoon feed him a solution that he wasn’t sure he wanted. “I’m not admitting anything. You’re the one who thinks I’m an anxious mess.”

“I’ve never said that.” Coulson - because he refused to call the man a doctor of literally anything - never seemed to buy any of what Bucky said, “There are plenty of opportunities to meet people that don’t involve wandering in a large crowd of people and announcing yourself, James. Have you considered going out with one of your friends and having a nice dinner?”

“Well, one friend is constantly on a diet that allows her to eat five calories a day and the other plays Pokemon for a living.”

“They’re your friends, not mine, James.” Because obviously, Bucky could have made that mistake. Coulson leaned back in his chair and Bucky couldn’t help but notice the fact that he’d been so straightlaced that morning he didn’t bother to choose socks that could show the slightest bit of personality. Not even a color. What kind of monster was he? “I want you to make a promise that for next week, you’ll have gone out with your friends once. For brunch, for dinner, for a movie. Something that gets you out of the house for a reason other than this appointment.”

“And if I don’t?”

_Is it an order?_

“I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, James, but you’re here because everything you’ve tried on your own hasn’t worked. So how about you trust the professional on this.”

Bucky couldn’t really argue with that, so with a lump in his throat he nodded, “Yeah, alright. I’ll try to spend some time outside the apartment.” It wasn’t a promise but he was certain it was the closest he could get.

The rest of the appointment passed with few words, the sound of Coulson’s pen on his notepad soothing in its own way, at least it kept away the utter silence between them. It always tended to lurk on the periphery of Bucky’s mind, ready to swallow him if he sat in one place too long with no background noise, reminding him of hot days in deserts and cold nights in swamps.

He always had to wonder what it was that Coulson could be writing when no words were passing between them but he never could quite get a glance at the notebook when he tried to leave.

He always felt weird after therapy, like his skin couldn’t fit right on him after having to talk about anything, and the bus ride back to the apartment was too crowded for him to comfortably leave his headphones in and tune out what was going in. He found a happy medium and settled for putting one of the headphones and leaving the other out so he could be on alert, like he was still trapped on the other side of the globe and not in the middle of Brooklyn.

The elderly lady who sat down beside him managed a soft smile and all he could was nod, moving to give her just a bit more room. _People,_ he heard Coulson’s voice tell him, _are not always out to get you, James._ Count to ten, count back down. He could do this.

She got off three stops before his which left his side exposed but gave him the comfort of alone, a double edged sword that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to handle and when it was finally time for him to make his way off he tried to be as unobtrusive and small as he possibly could.

Then his phone rang and Bucky stumbled, tried to get the stupid thing out of his pocket before everyone had a chance to look at him. Too late and he was left scurrying off like a rat from the gutter before he could press the accept button. “Damn it, Barton.”

“Love you too, honey.”

“What do you want?” He didn’t want to be short with Clint, who had stood by him for more than most, but the stress of the past few hours was finally creeping to the surface and threatening to make an appearance. “I’m almost to the apartment, give me just a minute.”

He lowered the phone, backtracking his steps to make sure that it had just been him to get off the bus. That no one made the same appearance more than twice. And he circled the block twice before he finally managed to climb the front steps and click his key into the lock.

Bucky lifted the phone back to his ear once he was inside of the building and the front door was safely closed and locked again, “Okay.”

“You gotta stop doing that, Bucky, it’s weird.”

_If I don’t do it, I’m not allowed to relax_ , his brain supplied. “I haven’t done it in awhile. I just had a weird feeling on the bus.”

He was lying and they both knew it. He hadn’t been able to stop since he’d come home which just made it easier to stay home and if he could just secure the perimeter, he wouldn’t have to worry about it for a few hours. It was his own private ritual at this point and he was fairly certain the lady downstairs thought he had a cat that kept getting out.

“Yeah, sure.” The apprehension was clear in Clint’s tone but he didn’t bother to call him out on it. Best of friends. “Anyways, before you did all that, I was calling for a reason. No ballet tonight so we can go out together… if you’re up for it. We were thinking pizza?”

Bucky could hear Coulson’s voice in the back of his head, urging him forward and telling him that it would be good for him. Outside, with friends. They would probably go bowling or something, nice and easy. And yet all Bucky could think about was all the things that could go wrong, what if he couldn’t handle it and who would be there to calm him down.

“Uh… yeah. There’s… a game on tonight I really wanted to catch.”

“Alright. Well, offer still stands if you change your mind. Or the game doesn’t go the way you want or something.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Clint.”

There was an awkward pause, both of them knowing exactly what was going on and neither of them wanting to say it. “It’ll probably be around seven or something, if you decide. Just ring, okay?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“For anything, Barnes. You know I’m here. You know I’ll drop it.” There was something unspoken there that Bucky wasn’t comfortable enough to touch, no matter what he and Barton had been through together.

“Yes, mother, thank you. I’m fine.”

There was a groan at the word _fine_ because they both knew what it actually meant. Fine meant someone was processing too much information, fine meant curled up in bed screaming into a pillow, fine meant sitting in an apartment with all the lights on so the shadows couldn’t creep up from the corners of the room.

“Alright, I’ll let you go. Don’t forgot to feed yourself tonight.” And with that there was a click and Clint’s voice in his ear was gone and he was left standing in the empty lobby of the apartment complex. By the time he even made it to his front door he could still hear Clint echoing in his ears, telling him to join them out in the actual world.

The nice thing about dinner with Clint and Natasha was that both of them were so completely charged in different ways that people rarely managed to even notice him between them. It also led to the horrible idea that the two of them would be swarmed, people constantly hovering at the edge of a table, asking for a photo or a hug while Bucky got to sit there like the unloved stepchild who was seconds away from snapping. Which, in all fairness, did tend to be true.

So instead he unlocked the front door, tossed his backpack onto the counter and watched as the small furry creature he let take over his life, hopped over and sniffed his toes. “Hey, dude.” He reached a hand down to scratch behind the rabbit’s ears, hearing the quiet purr of contentment, “Everything okay?” There was no answer, there never was, but he watched as the little creature scooted over to where the hay feeder was and decided that it meant no one had broke into the apartment while he was having his friend-mandated therapy session.

If he spent the rest of the night staring at the screen of his phone and trying to convince himself to give Clint a call, well, the rabbit would never tell on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not coping well with Endgame and the false and completely untrue ending it had and as such this is my mechanism for dealing with it. Shout out to Katie, who gets me yelling random things at her at midnight about the things that would and will go on in this AU.


	2. two

Bucky’s currently holed up on the futon in Clint’s spare bedroom, just out of sight of the camera as he listens to Clint answer questions that the chat is fielding him. He’s doing the thing where he sounds naturally charismatic, laughing easily and quickly while fiddling with the controller for the game he’s playing. 

He can’t help but snort as he heard one of the noises that came out of Clint’s mouth in reaction to whatever had just appeared on the screen, then Clint said, “Oh, sorry, that’s my friend, Bucky.” And Bucky was pretty sure he would have preferred it if Clint had just dumped boiling hot water over him and called it a day. “Nah, he’s not coming on the stream.”

How was he supposed to know if would pick up a  _ snort _ ? He opened his eyes to look over at Clint who was already trying to redirect the conversation to something else and the hair on the back of his neck was finally starting to settle back down.  _ Sorry, I didn’t think it would pick me up that easy. _

Clint shrugged at the signing, waving him off like it was the easiest thing in the world to just be communicating with everyone and no one at the same time. Bucky had no idea how he managed it.

“No, Nat’s not gonna be here today, she’s at rehearsal.”

Bucky paused for a moment, the constant background chatter of Clint answering questions allowed him to be brave for a moment, pulling out his own phone and opening Clint’s stream. With it on mute he watched as the chat loaded up and while it was clipping along at a good pace, it didn’t seem like conversation were being lost entirely in the madness.

_ Meet new people _ . Coulson had said. This had to count. Sure, he was comfortably behind a screen and no one could actually see him, but they were new people and he was talking to them. He’d argue for it in therapy next week. 

 

**WinterSoldier:** hey everyone

 

There was a pause and a few trickles of hello’s and hi’s before Clint slowly turned his head to look at him and without breaking eye contact leaned into the microphone, “Can someone please mod WinterSoldier? That’s Bucky.” And then a brief pause, “Thanks. Please, don’t make him mad, guys, he will ban with zero remorse.” He looked eerily like a giant bird of prey as he finally broke eye contact and returned to watching the screen of his game.

Bucky could hear the thump thump of Lucky’s tail as he curled around Clint’s feet and oblivious to the madness of his owner’s daily routine, Bucky however was focused on chat, unable to turn his eyes away from the constant scrolling. Most of the chatter he didn’t understand, words and call outs and tiny images of things that made Clint laugh but Bucky scratch his head and wonder how Natasha dealt with all of it.

 

**TheMechanic:** @WinterSoldier so you don’t stream?

**WinterSoldier:** no

**WinterSoldier:** @TheMechanic no

**TheMechanic:** @WinterSoldier don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.

 

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure that was true. There were shouts of something sparkly and the chat moved so quickly he wasn’t able to follow it all, only the occasional little sword icon as it moved up the side with the comments from people like  _ TheMechanic _ and  _ SevenPhDs _ . He wasn’t aware of what they actually stood for, but he assumed those were people to watch. And whenever he took the time to send anything in chat, he had one too.

 

**TheMechanic:** @WinterSoldier we’re taking bets if Natasha is actually his girlfriend or a cleverly paid actress, pls inform

**WinterSoldier:** @TheMechanic she is terrifying and powerful and I would never spill her secrets

 

There seemed to be some agreement about that in the chat so Bucky left it at that and closed the app. Coulson would have to be proud of him. Talking - and with  _ strangers _ \- he was pretty sure that hit every one of the hoops he’d been told to jump through. 

Now, however, Clint was yelling something at the screen about sparkles and Lucky was whining on the floor, quiet enough that his owner couldn’t hear but Bucky could see the sad brown puppy eyes staring at him.

He pat his thigh and the dog hopped up easily, coming to his side as Bucky slipped out of the door and to the outside patio. Immediately Lucky was off, tearing circles around the yard as Bucky sighed. He leaned against the door, contemplating the insanity of it all. His best friend, one that he’d known since joining the Army was currently in a spare bedroom screaming about a tiny small pixelated creature while people donated money for it. It wasn’t quite something Bucky could fathom or understand. But then again, he’d never seen Clint more in his element and more comfortable than he looked now. 

When he had first got back Clint had tried to get him a job with his old employer, some high tech company that made defensive military gear and liked to employ veterans, which Bucky had promptly told him to shove it up his ass and mind his own business. It hadn’t scared Clint off, it never did.

He wasn’t aware of how long he stood there, watching as Lucky paced around the yard before stopping to bark at a pair of squirrels aggressively waving their tails at him. 

“Dude, you went in chat!” Bucky tensed immediately, not prepared for anyone to be directly behind him and clapping their hands on his shoulders, “Sorry.” Clint didn’t sound particularly sorry.

“I felt brave. Don’t count on it.”

Lucky, finally turned away from the squirrels and noticed that his favorite person had also shown up in the backyard and promptly launched his entire body weight at Clint, knocking him down to the ground as Bucky side stepped out of the way. “Ow, Lucky, come on, dude.”

There was a scuffle and a fight for dominance before Clint managed to shove the dog off of him and scramble back up to his feet, which only caused the pup to jump between the two of them to see who would want to play more. It was Bucky who took pity, grabbing one the toys from the side of the porch and launching it across the yard.

“Do you know all those people?”

“All of them? Nah. But the mods and regulars? Kind of. Some of them are other streamers.”

As if that made the situation make any more sense to Bucky. “Oh, okay.” 

“Like, uh,  _ TheMechanic _ , he’s got a creative stream that’s just some fancy ass workshop. You never see him on screen and he only plays rock music but he makes some cool shit. And the other guy, he was talking to has a podcast and he’s got all kinds of smart ass people to talk on it. It’s crazy.” 

Almost as crazy as the idea of Clint actually just  _ talking _ to people on the internet. “I thought everyone on the internet was like… basement dwellers.”

“Wow, thanks for that complete stereotype. I happen to live in a house that is paid for entirely by my sugarmomma. No basements for me.” Clint puffed his chest out sarcastically before nudging Bucky, “Internet is in now, people are into it. Video games are cool. Honestly, when I worked for Stark Industries that’s when I started and one of the guys in research and development heard about it. That’s where those two are from.”

“The more you talk about this, the more fake it sounds, you realize that?”

“Dude, I play pokemon for a living. Natasha is a Russian ballerina. My whole life sounds fake, I’m kind of okay with that.” 

And he had a fair point, there had been more than one time that Bucky had been  _ jealous _ over Clint’s life and his ability to get it together so quickly after the military. Like he’d just picked everything up and rolled with it, never pausing for a moment with half the shit Bucky found eating away at him. Clint always had been like that, whenever a curveball was thrown, he was the first to accept it and find a way to work with it. Sometimes Bucky hated that. 

“I have an idea.” Clint grabbed Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him close for a moment. “I’m a genius.”

That never ended up being close to true. “I don’t like where this is going.” 

Bucky was already making an effort to shove his arm in between them to make some space and pry Clint loose. “You should try streaming.”

“No.”

“I’m seriously, you don’t even have to have a face cam!”

“No.”

“Dude, it’s perfect!”

“No.”

“I won’t even mention you or anything, no one will even know you’re streaming. Just stream to no one. Me and Nat will watch.”

Bucky opened his mouth to argue and he really did want to. There were too many unknowns, too many things for him to be worried about. Would someone be able to track him down? Would they know where to find his friends? And yet, a part of it did make sense. It would be putting himself out there without the fear of actually going out. He could be in control of what was seen and what was said.

“Come on, James. What do you say? I’ll set it up.”

He paused before nodding his head, “Okay, yeah sure. I’ll try it. Once. Once, Clint!” 

But if he had anything else to say it was muffled by the loudness of Clint’s excited yell and how tightly he was pulled into a hug, “You’ll love it!” Not for the first time in his life Bucky was left just having to listen to the voice that told him to trust Clint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting to bring Tony into this and a HINT of Bruce. Don't worry, Steve will be making his appearance known soon enough.


End file.
